Discover how we can help you achieve sustainable revenue growth and enhanced customer loyalty. Contact us today to learn more!
5 Essential Features to Look for in Subscription Billing Software
We’re going to say something that’s absolutely shocking.
Subscription billing managers love to have their time wasted. They love to lose cash and revenue opportunities. They love to drown in paperwork and crappy analogue processes.
Of course, they don’t love all that!
But if you look at the outdated, underwhelming subscription management processes they’ve been forced to use, it certainly looks that way.
And if you’re in subscription billing management and have little support for the end-to-end, you’re probably nodding your head. The struggle is real.
In fact, you’ve probably been researching solutions that can stop your struggle and revolutionise the way your subscription billing management is done.
The sooner you can free yourself or your team from time wasting and churn, the sooner you can use your talents to do what you do best. Sell. Innovate. Future-proof the business.
So here are 5 essential features you’ll find in the best subscription billing management software:
1. Suffer with manually generating invoices, missed payments, late fees?
Automated billing lets you set up recurring payments and forget about it. No more missed payments or late fees! Your customers will no longer have to manually pay. You won’t have to remember changes in billing.
2. Lack flexible payment options that cause customer churn or late payments?
Customers vary on how they like to pay. You need software that offers flexible payment options, so you can cater to all your customers’ preferences.
3. Hate spending time chasing missing payments?
This task’s about as fun as eating the old french fries under your car seat. Dunning management automates the process of following up with customers who have missed payments. No more awkward phone calls.
4. Are you tired of making uninformed decisions because you have no insight into subscriptions?
With the right analytics and reporting features you’ll know how many subscriptions you have at any time. And the average customer lifetime value. Solid data means solid decisions.
5. Sick to death of soul-sucking manual data entry, errors, and incompatible software?
A good integration feature works with your existing tools and systems including your accounting software, CRM, and payment gateways. That means time is saved and errors are gone.
The right features make life easier.
When you decide to take the plunge, you’ll have options. And one of them is our subscription management solution – leading-edge and innovation award-winning software. LISA Business automates your subscription management and grows recurring revenue – all running on top of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central. Our clients enjoy a revolutionised and demonstrable improvement in operational efficiency, visibility into revenue, and profitability.
But we offer more than that. We offer our belief that it’s important to be the kind of people that people want to work with.
Because what’s the point otherwise?
We love collaboration with a huge variety of people. And we would love to see the end of your stressful days and nights. The end to your wasted time and money. And we’d love to see you enjoy happy customers and the freedom to do what you do best – grow your business.
Why not drop us a line and see how we can help?
Let’s chat further.
"*" indicates required fields
Related blog articles.
How to Use Power Automate to Export Data from FSCM to SharePoint
by Ahmed Eid, Lead Developer D365 Solutions at Bluefort Imagine a finance manager, overwhelmed by the daily task of manually exporting critical data from Microsoft Dynamics 365 FSCM to SharePoint, finally reclaiming hours of productivity. Or picture a sales operations manager who needs to export and share sales orders daily with the fulfilment team, constantly battling time-consuming processes that leave room for errors. This guide reveals how you can achieve the same transformation they did by building a Power Automate flow that seamlessly handles these processes for you. Whether you're managing monthly financial reports, automating the export of sales orders to streamline operations, or ensuring real-time updates for stakeholders, automating data export to SharePoint can save time, reduce errors, and boost efficiency across your organization. In this article we are going to demonstrate an example of exporting sales orders, you can define the entities that you want to export in the export package. Step 1: Set Up Export in FSCM Create/Identify a Data Entity: identify or create the data entity in FSCM that holds the information you want to export. Ensure the entity is available for O-Data access. Enable Data Management Framework: navigate to the Data management workspace in F&O and ensure your data entity is enabled for export. Data Export project: create data export project. You can configure this to run full or incremental. Step 2: Create a Power Automate Flow Now, use Power Automate to retrieve the exported file and save it to SharePoint. Log in to Power Automate: go to Power Automate and sign in with your credentials. Create a New Flow: Click on Create and select Automated Cloud Flow. Name your flow (e.g., " Export data D365FO ") and select a trigger. For this scenario, you can use the Schedule - Recurrence trigger to automate the process on a set schedule. Add an Action to export the package: Add the action Fin & Ops Export package action. Configure it to export the export project created in the earlier step, specifying the instance, definition group (project name), action as specified and the legal entity. Get the execution status of the export project: Initialize a Variable to hold the export project status named Execution status. Add Do Until action to keep looping till the status turns to succeeded. Add Fin and Ops action to get the package execution summary, this needs the Execution Id passed from the output of the earlier step of exporting the package. The action is named GetExecutionSummaryStatus. Add a step to set the created variable with the previous action output. Once the export package execution is over in Fin and Ops, this will end the loop giving the green line to go to the next steps. Add Fin & Ops action to get the export URL: Add actions and choose GetExportedPackageURL action and specify the execution Id. Add an Action to Save to SharePoint: Add the action Upload file from URL, specify the source as the output of the previous step, the destination file path is the file name, and you can choose either to overwrite the file if exists or no. Configure Get File content to get the content from the previous step specifying the File Id which is found from the previous step output. Use Create file on SharePoint action to create the file from the contents of the previous step. specify the SharePoint site address, Folder to use to save the file, file name and file content. Optional - Notify Stakeholders: Add an action to send an email or Teams notification to stakeholders once the file has been successfully saved to SharePoint. Step 3: Test and Validate the Flow Run a Test: Manually trigger the flow or wait for the scheduled trigger to run. Ensure the file is exported from F&O and saved to SharePoint. Validate the Output: Check the SharePoint library to confirm the file is saved correctly. Verify the file content matches your expectations. Tips for Optimization Error Handling: don't let failed exports catch you off guard! Build in condition checks and error-handling steps to ensure your flow gracefully navigates hiccups and keeps things running smoothly Dynamic File Names: use expressions to create dynamic file names based on the date or other parameters. Security: don't let failed exports catch you off guard! Build in condition checks and error-handling steps to ensure your flow gracefully navigates hiccups and keeps things running smoothly Conclusion Transform the way you manage data with the power of automation. By combining Microsoft Dynamics 365 FSCM with Power Automate, you can eliminate manual processes, reduce errors, and boost efficiency. Imagine never worrying about missed exports or data delays again! Your automated flow takes care of it all, from exporting sales orders to delivering timely updates to your SharePoint library. Why wait to level up your operations? Start creating your Power Automate flow today and experience the freedom to focus on what truly matters: making strategic decisions, driving growth, and empowering your team. The future of streamlined data management is just a few clicks away!
Automating Subscription Lifecycles in Microsoft Dynamics 365 FSCM: How Manufacturing Leaders Can Eliminate Manual Workflows and Reduce Delivery Errors.
As we move deeper into 2025, the subscription economy continues to transform traditional business models across manufacturing and distribution sectors. According to McKinsey, subscription-based revenue streams have grown 5x faster than traditional sales models since 2021, compelling industrial leaders to adapt their operational infrastructure. However, many organizations still grapple with outdated, manual subscription management processes that create substantial operational inefficiencies. This is particularly evident in companies with large product catalogues and complex distribution networks spanning multiple countries—a scenario where manual intervention becomes increasingly problematic as subscription volume grows. Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance & Supply Chain Management serves as the foundation for financial operations, supply chain logistics, and core business processes. While it provides robust ERP capabilities, subscription lifecycle management requires additional automation to handle mid-cycle modifications, proration calculations, and revenue recognition. This is where LISA Enterprise seamlessly extends Dynamics 365, ensuring a fully integrated, automated subscription management experience The Hidden Costs of Manual Subscription Management Manual subscription lifecycle management represents a significant yet often overlooked drain on financial and operational resources. Research indicates that organizations relying on manual subscription modifications can experience up to 72-hour latency in processing customer changes, resulting in considerable error rates, especially during peak demand periods. These inefficiencies translate into tangible financial losses, with some manufacturing enterprises reporting significant value in write-offs annually due to billing system misalignments. The challenges extend beyond direct financial impact. When subscription modifications require manual backend updates through proprietary ERP interfaces, the process introduces substantial operational friction. Finance teams can spend considerable hours per adjustment calculating pro-rated credits using spreadsheets - a process that becomes exponentially more complex when managing thousands of active subscriptions across multiple product lines and distribution channels. This administrative burden diverts valuable resources from strategic initiatives and creates bottlenecks that impede growth. Perhaps most concerning is the impact on customer experience. In today's competitive landscape, businesses expect real-time responsiveness from their suppliers. When subscription changes take days rather than minutes to process, customer satisfaction inevitably suffers. For manufacturers where just-in-time inventory management is critical, such delays can disrupt entire production schedules and damage long-term business relationships. Key Subscription Lifecycle Pain Points in Manufacturing and Distribution Several specific pain points characterize manual subscription management in enterprise manufacturing environments: Manual Subscription Modifications When customers need to adjust delivery intervals, shipping addresses, or order quantities mid-cycle, traditional ERP systems often require manual intervention. This creates a cascade of inefficiencies, as each change must be manually propagated across multiple systems—from CRM to ERP to logistics platforms, and longer for third party integrations especially when customized. For organizations with thousands of active subscriptions, even minor modifications quickly overwhelm administrative capacity, creating backlogs that compromise service levels. The absence of self-service capabilities further compounds this challenge. In today's digital-first environment, business customers expect the ability to make subscription adjustments independently through intuitive interfaces. When such functionality is unavailable, each modification generates a service ticket that must be manually processed—extending resolution times and increasing operational costs. Proration Calculation Challenges Mid-cycle subscription changes necessitate complex proration calculations to ensure accurate billing. Without automated systems, finance teams must manually determine appropriate credits or additional charges for partial billing periods—a process fraught with potential errors. A Forrester analysis found that manual proration processes result in calculation errors in approximately 9% of cases, leading to either revenue leakage or customer disputes. The complexity increases exponentially when dealing with subscription models involving multiple components, tiered pricing structures, or volume-based discounts. Each variable introduces additional calculation requirements that manual systems struggle to accommodate with consistency and precision. Revenue Recognition Complexities Manufacturing organizations transitioning to subscription models face considerable revenue recognition challenges that traditional ERP systems weren't designed to handle. Under ASC 606/IFRS 15 compliance standards, subscription revenue must be recognized over the service delivery period rather than at initial invoice—creating complex accounting requirements that manual processes struggle to manage effectively. Finance teams using conventional systems often resort to maintaining separate spreadsheets for tracking deferred revenue, creating a parallel financial system prone to errors and inconsistencies. This approach becomes particularly problematic at month-end and year-end closes, when reconciliation between systems can delay financial reporting by days or even weeks. For publicly traded manufacturing enterprises, these delays introduce compliance risks and reduce financial transparency. The situation grows exponentially more complex when handling subscription modifications, where revenue must be reallocated across revised service periods. Manual recalculations of revenue schedules following mid-term changes frequently introduce accuracy issues which directly impact financial statement accuracy and audit readiness. Cross-Channel Visibility Gaps Modern manufacturing organizations operate across multiple sales channels, from traditional field sales to e-commerce platforms and even emerging immersive technologies. Without integrated subscription management systems, these channels often function as operational silos, creating visibility gaps that compromise the customer experience. For example, sales representatives visiting client sites may lack real-time visibility into changes made through e-commerce platforms, leading to contradictory information being provided to customers. Similarly, back-office staff processing subscription modifications may be unaware of concurrent changes being negotiated by field teams, resulting in conflicting updates that generate inventory allocation conflicts and fulfilment errors. The Automation Solution: LISA Enterprise powering Microsoft Dynamics 365 Addressing these challenges requires a comprehensive approach to subscription lifecycle automation. The combination of Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Bluefort's LISA Enterprise platform offers a particularly powerful solution for manufacturing organizations seeking to streamline subscription management processes. Automated Proration and Billing Adjustments Perhaps the most significant advantage of an integrated subscription management solution is automated handling of complex billing scenarios. LISA Enterprise's proration engine automatically calculates appropriate adjustments when subscriptions are modified mid-cycle, ensuring accurate billing without manual intervention. This functionality extends to various scenarios, including: Subscription upgrades or downgrades Quantity adjustments Temporary suspension of deliveries Early renewal or cancellation Add-on services or products The system maintains comprehensive audit trails for all adjustments, providing complete transparency for both internal finance teams and customers. This visibility is particularly valuable during financial audits and compliance reviews, where manual adjustments often face heightened scrutiny. Advanced Revenue Recognition LISA Enterprise provides advanced revenue recognition automation that aligns perfectly with ASC 606/IFRS 15 requirements. The system automatically generates appropriate revenue recognition schedules based on subscription terms, with built-in intelligence to handle complex scenarios such as multi-element arrangements, variable consideration, and contract modifications. Revenue schedules adjust dynamically when subscription terms change, eliminating manual recalculations and ensuring compliance with accounting standards. The solution provides finance teams with real-time revenue forecasting capabilities, enhancing financial planning while reducing month-end close times by up to 65% compared to manual approaches. Self-Service Portal Capabilities LISA Enterprise extends Dynamics 365 with robust self-service capabilities that empower customers to manage their own subscription modifications. Through intuitive interfaces, customers can adjust delivery schedules, update shipping information, modify order quantities, and make other changes without requiring manual intervention from administrative staff. These self-service capabilities not only enhance customer satisfaction by providing immediate control over subscription parameters but also dramatically reduce administrative workload. Changes made through the self-service portal automatically propagate across integrated systems, eliminating the need for manual updates and reducing the potential for transcription errors. Multi-Channel Coordination Bluefort's LISA Enterprise addresses the critical challenge of cross-channel visibility by providing a unified subscription management platform that integrates with all customer touchpoints. This integration ensures that subscription information remains consistent regardless of which channel customers use to interact with the organization. Sales representatives gain real-time visibility into subscription status and historical modifications through mobile applications, enabling informed conversations during client visits. Similarly, customer service teams access comprehensive subscription histories when addressing inquiries, eliminating contradictory information that undermines customer confidence. This unified approach is particularly valuable for organizations managing subscriptions across multiple entities or subsidiaries. LISA Enterprise's capabilities for handling intercompany transactions ensure that all entities maintain synchronized records, even when subscriptions involve complex internal fulfilment processes. Integration with Microsoft Dynamics Ecosystem As an extension of Microsoft Dynamics 365, LISA Enterprise leverages existing investments in Microsoft's technology stack. The platform integrates seamlessly with other Dynamics modules, including: Dynamics 365 Finance for revenue recognition and financial reporting Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management for inventory allocation and fulfilment Dynamics 365 Sales for opportunity management and pipeline visibility Power BI for comprehensive subscription analytics and performance monitoring This ecosystem approach eliminates integration challenges that often plague standalone subscription management solutions, providing a cohesive platform that supports the entire subscription lifecycle from initial sale through recurring fulfilment and renewal. ROI and Business Impact Organizations implementing automated subscription management solutions typically realize substantial returns on investment. Bluefort research indicates that automation of subscription processes can reduce administrative costs by up to 75% whilst almost entirely eliminating billing errors. For large, global manufacturing organizations, these efficiencies can translate into annual savings exceeding millions in direct labour costs alone. Beyond cost savings, automated subscription management delivers significant operational benefits. Order accuracy improves dramatically, with fulfilment errors decreasing by 85-90% following implementation. Customer satisfaction metrics typically show double-digit improvements, reflecting enhanced responsiveness and service consistency. Perhaps most importantly, automated subscription management creates a scalable foundation for subscription growth. By eliminating manual bottlenecks, organizations can expand their subscription offerings without proportional increases in administrative overhead—a critical advantage in competitive markets where agility determines success. Conclusion: Building a Future-Ready Subscription Foundation For manufacturing organizations committed to subscription model growth, automated lifecycle management represents not just an operational improvement but a strategic imperative. The combination of Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Bluefort's LISA Enterprise provides a comprehensive solution that addresses the full spectrum of subscription management challenges, from customer self-service to complex financial calculations and multi-channel coordination. By implementing these technologies, forward-thinking manufacturers can eliminate the operational friction that impedes subscription growth while delivering the seamless experience that customers increasingly expect. The result is a subscription management foundation that supports not just current business requirements but future expansion into new markets, products, and revenue models. See LISA Enterprise in action. Book a free demo today and unlock a more agile, automated future for your business.
Empowering Recurring Service Workers: The Impact of Real-Time Information Flow
Information is power. And this is particularly true for the recurring service industry, because workers need the right details to do their job. Without it, a recurring service company has to contend with delays, mistakes, unhappy customers, churn, and job dissatisfaction. These problems have a knock-on effect for the business in both the short and long-term. Fortunately, an operations system that promotes the free flow of information across teams in real time empowers service workers. It streamlines resource allocation and revolutionizes both operations and results. In this article: Why the Lack of Information Makes Service Workers’ Jobs Hard How It Hurts You As a Recurring Service Business What Real-Time Information Flow Brings to Service Workers The Extra Benefits You Get Recurring service workers need accurate instructions on where, when, how, and what they’re supposed to do. The problem is that many recurring services companies don’t give them what they need to delivery a service. So how can they do their job correctly? The short answer is they can’t. And that can have a massive impact on the bottom line of a recurring brand. But providing all the information necessary is a mammoth task if your operations are manual. This article will discuss the problems that come with the lack of free-flowing information. It will analyze how these problems impact your workers and your business. It will then give a good picture of what is needed to turn things around, smoothing out service provision and improving the bottom line for your business. Why the Lack of Information Makes Service Workers’ Jobs Hard Recurring service workers have jobs that require information to be correct and available. This includes things like contracts, terms, and usage. Recurring services companies that use manual processes will have fleets that struggle to deliver consistent, reliable services. In these circumstances, here are the ongoing pain points they contend with on a daily basis: Silos everywhere: When there’s little or no information sync between the financial, sales, customer service, and other teams, the chances of the information going through being correct and timely plummet. Delays aplenty: Thanks to both the manual recording of data and the manual retrieval of information, the data’s delayed, and so is service delivery and decision-making. Bottlenecks in the day: Manually created workflows (especially combined with the delayed and incorrect info) impede service workers' productivity and service quality. This makes bottlenecks that can put them hours or days behind. Mistakes in delivering service: Any outdated data (which can occur at any time with siloed data) leads to costly mistakes in service provision. Resource misallocation: Without reliable information, and with bottlenecks, effective resource allocation becomes impossible. Plunging worker morale: Frustration from manual processes, delays, and lack of access to real-time data, and mistakes in resource allocation can lead to decreased job satisfaction and motivation. All of these throw a monkey wrench into your operations and revenue while both disappointing and infuriating your workers. And these problems will impact your business as a whole as well. How It Hurts You As a Recurring Service Business These problems can spread across anywhere in your recurring service organization. Do any of these impacts sound familiar to you? Higher cost and less incoming revenue: Inefficient operations cut into revenue at any given time because you have to spend more to get results. It also cuts future revenue, because you have continual delays in service onboarding, contract processing, etc. Resource allocation: This is one of the most important challenges in recurring service. You can’t allocate your resources properly when there are delays and data silos that stop information flow. Because manual operations mean phone calls with suppliers. Sales and customer service teams phoning customers putting out fires. Finance checking with sales and customer service about contracts and terms so they can set things up and approve installation. And these scenarios are just for starters. Expensive worker turnover: Employees in burnout or employees who quit are expensive. Either way, it’s most costs for you as you look for replacements who will face the same challenges. Customer dissatisfaction: Customers need consistency in their service quality from installation all the way through the lifetime of your relationship. Without it, customers get unhappy. They rumble. They complain to your customer service department. You’re forced to offer benefits and discounts that you wouldn’t have had to before. Less cash flow: Because inaccurate invoicing, billing discrepancies and delayed payments slows down inbound revenue, you’ll get cash flow issues, and perhaps creditor and supplier issues too. That adds more pressure to workflows to find the money from somewhere else. Churn: There are multiple reasons why you’ll have more churn, and not just because of the problems directly related to your service team. Word of bad service gets out. You competition will notice you’re losing customers. If your base catches wind you’re having service delivery and operations problems, that damages trust in your brand. It also harms your relationships with your customers which drives up customer acquisition and cuts Customer Lifetime Value costs. Given these harms, it’s no wonder that original problem of lack of the free-flow of information poses such a threat. Fortunately, with the right information flow, things can look up, and fast. The solution comes in the form of subscription management platform that analyses and shares data in real time. It brings all the benefits of real-time information, with zero additional effort from you and your workers. In fact, you’ll save them time and resources. What Real-Time Information Flow Brings to Service Workers Subscription management software eliminates data silos so that all the information about your customers, their needs, their contracts and terms, and usage are readily available, anytime, and all the time. It’s accurate and free from manual errors too. This information is available to you, your sales team, customer service, finance, fleet management, and anyone else in your operations who need it. Real-time information flow transforms how service workers operate within recurring service businesses. They get real-time access to important data, which includes usage, changes in contract terms, offerings, and service schedules, preferences, inventory/supplies, etc. This helps them with any decision-making they’ve got along the way. When data flows in real time across the service-related departments, service workers know where they are supposed to go, when, and for what. Management becomes more…manageable because the free-flow of data also gives them bonuses - proactive issue resolution, predictive maintenance, and personalized customer interactions. Workflows are nicer too, because they’re not based on errors or guesses. Which all means…satisfied service workers with a much less stressful day-to-day schedule. And that’s not all… The Extra Benefits You Get Just like the lack of data flow causes knock-on impacts for you and the greater business, so does free-flowing information. Here’s how things turn around for the greatest business and brand beyond your happy service workers: Your customers get an exceptional experience: Everything from fast responses to personalized services right down to the service delivery and invoicing/payments, everything’s customized end-to-end for them. That creates loyalty and cuts churn in general. Siloes are cut down, and communication is better between all teams: Real-time data that is automatically and freely shared means that numbers are more reliable, forecasting more accurate, and reports are great foundations for strategic decisions. All people can collaborate more effectively because no one has to chase or guess anything. Resource allocation is optimized: It won’t just be your service team that loves this free flow of information. When your scheduling is efficient, your maintenance planned, and your resources utilized in the best way, you cut costs and boost efficiency. More revenue growth: With proactive service management and the best billing and payment processes that are automatically run for you by a good solution, revenue grows because you don’t have costly errors. Your teams aren’t throwing out expensive discounts to keep customers with later service on side. You aren’t replacing your burned out service workers. You’re not waiting for payments. And word of mouth works in your favour between customers. Long story short, you get the competitive edge. Conclusion Real time information flow isn’t just a tech upgrade. It’s a necessary investment in the contentment of your service workers, and the future revenue growth of your business. The efficiency and effectiveness of service workers will play a pivotal role in any recurring service business. They just need the tools necessary to their jobs. Going with the right subscription management solution will solve these problems and bring so much more to the table. Curious to see how it will work for you? Book a free Discovery Call with our team today.
The Psychology Behind Successful Recurring Services Brands: How to Win Their Minds (and Hearts!)
Recurring services have an untapped free resource that could help them build lasting customer relationships and drive growth. The resource? Psychology. It gives insights into customer behavior which is the key to understanding how to build trust, communicate with impact, and grasp customer behavior. This article covers multiple strategies a recurring service-offering business can use to leverage psychology to better meet their customer base’s needs while enhancing customer satisfaction, retention, and a competitive edge. In this article: What Links Understanding Customer Behavior to Success Building Trust and Credibility: The Pillars of Customer Relationships Starting a Referral Program Knowing the Customer Understanding what people want and why they do the things they do is the most valuable thing a business can know. This is especially true for recurring services, which rely on long-term relationships and continual customer satisfaction. If you are a business that offers recurring services, you know that building those long-lasting relationships with your customers drives sustained growth. Appreciating why your customers need what they need and make the decisions that they do will be a game changer. In this article, we’ll dip our toes into the pool of consumer psychology, and then have a look at some of the strategies that successful recurring services brands use to boost their customer relationships. What Links Understanding Customer Behavior to Success A successful recurring brand will put consumer behavior front and center. Consumer behavior guides a business to know things like: what products and services they should sell when they should sell them what customers like and dislike how they like to be communicated with In essence, it shows how to make customers happy. 86% of buyers will pay more for a great CX. -Price Waterhouse Coopers 80% of organizations expect to compete based on CX. -Gartner When a recurring service jumps into the world of psychology, they are better equipped to create and tailor offerings to meet the needs and demands of their target market. Creating segments and personas that are based on demographic and psychographic data further helps by personalizing how they service and communicate with the customers. Building Trust and Credibility: The Pillars of Customer Relationships Who wants to give their business to a company that can’t be trusted? Trust is extremely important in the recurring services industry because brands have an ongoing purchase-involving relationship with customers. Trust forms the bedrock of successful customer relationships. When customers feel appreciated, listened to, and told the truth, their trust builds. And that trust is needed to keep building a customer base. Knowing the Customer What steps can a company take to build that trust? Researching and acting on how and why customers do what they do has a positive impact on everything from pricing strategies to leveraging loss aversion to shaping product and service offerings. Here are some of the most popular options: 1. Use FOMO and Social Proof to Drive Conversions Both social proof and Fear of Missing Out can boost conversions and loyalty. Social proof capitalizes on a customer’s likelihood to look at the way others behave to influence their decisions. If a customer is uncertain about your brand or recurring service, they would find the experiences of others useful when making their own decision. It’s why businesses put testimonials on their website and write case studies. It’s also why customers check reviews before they buy things. Similarly, FOMO takes advantage of the fear of missing out on a rare opportunity which may never happen again. It’s an emotional trigger that can inspire a customer to act fast, especially true for the 70% of Millennials who experience it. Everything that falls under these two factors including testimonials, reviews, timers, pop-ups for one-off flash sales, user-generated content, and endorsements on social media boost the confidence of potential customers. They also encourage action. 2. Bring in Gamification for Engagement and Retention Gamification in the User Experience makes things a lot more fun. Competition and achievement tap into the brain’s rewards systems and gives a good hit dopamine to add fun, Their sense of accomplishment encourages engagement and keeps them coming back for more. They’re motivated to stay active, check out the different features you want to highlight, and work for set goals. It’s a win-win situation - you expand your base and Customer Lifetime Value, and your customers associate your brand with fun. 3. Show Reciprocity in the Personalized Experience That old saying “You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours” is a popular phrase for a good reason. As customers we like to know a business isn’t taking advantage of us. We need to feel appreciated and seen. This is especially important online, where so many financial interactions are faceless. Reciprocity, or giving something in return, is a great way to meet this expectation. There’s so much variety in how you can show reciprocity! There are personalized gestures that can be created for any individual including: discounts loyalty schemes public shout-outs Features on the website surprise gifts or handwritten notes All of them can trigger a feeling of appreciation and uniqueness, which deepens your connection. Customers who feel valued will stay and continue their recurring purchases. They’re also far more likely to tell others about it! 4. Leverage Personalized Email and Marketing Strategies Marketing teams equipped with the customer data and insights they need to drive marketing have a huge advantage. They have the power to build relationships with all their customer segments through personalized messaging for each group and individual customer. And what’s more, they know the best times to deliver those targeted messages, offerings, and campaigns. 76% of customers are more likely to buy from brands that use personalization. Personalization can bring companies up to 40% more revenue. -McKinsey Personalized marketing brings both existing and potential customers content that is compelling, because it’s tailored for their specific situations. Whether it’s to educate, entertain, or to build relationships with the brand, customers will find it useful. And that nurtures relationships over time, driving revenue growth and a better Customer Lifetime Value. These are all impactful strategies that can boost your customer satisfaction and lifetime value. But there’s a slight snag. They will take up time and resources from your teams. Unless you use a solution that does everything for you, freeing up that time and resources. Where Help Comes From There is a comprehensive, automated solution that boosts customer experience by using psychology-focused strategies so that you get all the benefits but need less time and resources diverted from your teams. Imagine one platform that does everything for you. It pulls together all your legacy data, and streamlines all data trapped in silos, sharing it in real-time. That data forms the basis of an agile knowledge bank that knows your customers, their behaviour, their needs, their segments, what your competition is doing, the best pricing models, and insights and reports that is available at any time. On top of that, automation uses all that information for its processed actions. Everything from: Product offerings Coordinating customer feedback and testimonials Individualized pricing and add-on combinations Determining the best offers for each customer Marketing like email funnels designed to guide an individual customer journey Identifying the best times for a FOMO promotion Boost transparency with clear communication about pricing, usage and maintenance, contract terms, etc. Tracking the impact of all these actions And so much more. It leverages psychology for you, making your impact with your customers so much stronger. And it makes your employees so much happier, because they’re not stuck doing repetitive, time-consuming work. Instead, they’re taking these customer insights and creating a more compelling customer experience for new and existing customers. Conclusion Understanding the psychology behind customers and how they interact with brands enables a recurring service provider to drive up engagement, conversion, loyalty, and long-term revenue. It gives a strong advantage over competitors too. Curious to see how fast you could benefit? Book a free Discovery Call with our team today.
3 Tiny and Proven Changes Your Subscription Brand Can Make for CLV and Long-term Growth
Growth is where it’s at. But it can be elusive and hard to hold on to. It can also be expensive. This article explores three small changes that subscription-offering businesses can make to boost their CLV and long-term growth. The strategies bring bonus benefits as well including strengthened customer relationships, cut churn, payment failure prevention, and boosted word-of-mouth marketing. In this article: Offer a Subscription Pause Option Letting Customers Pay the Way They Want Starting a Referral Program In business, it’s not very often that something easy to do has a big impact on something important. And in the subscription industry, it can feel as though everything that’s necessary for growth is a massive drain on time and resources. Marketing campaigns. Product development. Demos. Onboarding. Customer service. Invoicing. So here’s a little good news. Not everything requires months of logistical planning, consultants, and a slush fund. There are three tiny changes you can make that can have a massive impact on your revenue and growth over the long term, strengthening your market position. Let’s get right into it! 1. Offer a Subscription Pause Option A subscription pause option simply allows your subscribers to pause your service without cancelling the subscription. This can be for any reason - they might have other temporary priorities, money might be tight, or they may have to re-evaluate their usage and figure out which add-ons and services work better for them. Subscription companies might feel ambivalent about a pause option because it sounds like a gateway to cancellation. It feels counter intuitive to growth. But it has the opposite effect. You’re far more likely to keep them as long-term customers because it creates trust. Why it Matters in the Subscription Arena: When you give subscribers a pause option, you’re telling them you understand them. That they have differing needs and circumstances. That you would rather have them on board as satisfied customers, over raking in the monthly fee. It also shows that you understand that they don’t want to lose their account and their data - you’re not forcing them to make the impossible choice of “we can’t keep up, so we’ll have to cancel everything.” It’s up to you to define what a pause means and how it works: Limited or no access to the subscription? How long can they pause it for? How often can they pause it? All that is needed is a tunnel – a point of occasional contact that ensures you keep them onside throughout the pause. The pause option boosts customer long-term satisfaction by giving them the flexibility and sense of control that they want. You might take a temporary financial hit, but you cut your churn and enjoy a much stronger relationship with your customers for the long term. And that will pay in dividends. 2. Letting Customers Pay the Way They Want Letting customers pay in the way that works best for them will make them happier and more likely to pay on time, every time. There is no financial benefit to making customers jump through hoops to pay for their subscriptions. There are far too many competitors out there, who have no problem offering customers exactly what they want. And when payments are more time-consuming to make, obstacles get in the way. Then payments are forgotten and fall through the cracks. Then you’re stuck wasting precious time chasing tons of payments. You’ll suffer revenue leakage as well. That gets expensive if you have thousands or hundreds or thousands of subscribers. On the other hand, accommodating preferred payment methods gets logistically difficult. Often you content with multiple billing cycles, currencies, and regulations, stretched around the world. Accommodating preferred payment methods might not look like a tiny change. But with the right tool, making this change is easier than your current payment system currently. Why it Matters in the Subscription Arena It’s important to cater as much as possible to subscription customers because it’s so easy for them to leave and go straight to your competition. In the subscription industry, there’s nothing more important than a good Customer Lifetime Value. And keeping customers with you and paying will contribute to your CLV. Here’s how costly not providing easy payments can be for you: How many hours a week do you spend chasing payments? How much is your teams’ time worth, versus the size of these payments? How much do you lose annually due to payment failures? What’s the churn rate for customers who experience failed payments disruption? What’s the long-term cost over 10 years? The costs of not accommodating preferred payments can be astronomical. And that’s revenue and time loss that could have been invested or put toward innovation, development, growth, etc. 3. Starting a Referral Program We’re all use word-of-mouth. We listen to other people’s opinions. And whether we have good or bad experiences with a subscription, we talk about it. A referral program leverages the power of word-of-mouth by incentivising your subscribers to refer new customers to you in exchange for benefits, rewards, and discounts. With the right benefits, happy subscribers turn into brand advocates. Given how much people trust recommendations from family and friends, that advocacy is like gold dust. 92% of consumers trust personal referrals. And people are 400% more likely to buy when referred. (Nielsen) Referred customers have a 16% higher CLV. (Harvard Business Review) Why it Matters in the Subscription Arena: It’s the ultimate marketing plan that you don’t have to plan or find the right words for. The right referral plans boost customer retention because rewards keep customers on side. Referral programs are extremely important in the subscription space for customer acquisition. Acquisition is often one of the biggest and most expensive challenges that a subscription business has. But when existing customers are brand advocates, they attract new subscribers for you. And those new subscribers are also far more likely to be long-term customers. Why struggle to do something that others can do for you easily? When you leverage the customer base you already have, you broaden your base, and lower customer acquisition costs. There’s nothing set in stone about which benefits your referral program needs to include. But the rewards should be exclusive to the referral plan only. That locks in the incentive. Conclusion Sometimes it’s the little decisions that make all the difference. Whether you decide to offer a pause, broaden payment options, and/or start a simple referring program you have a lot of potential to boost everything from Lifetime Value, retention, and revenue, while cutting significant costs like acquisition and leakage. These subtle adjustments can help you as a subscription business position your brand for long-term revenue and customer base growth, and success. If you’re curious about an all-in-one subscription management software package that implements and automates all these changes for you, why not get in touch? Book a free Discovery Call with our team today.
The YES! Factor: The Secret to Subscription Box Delivery Success
When done right, subscription boxes can bring customers a lot of joy. But there are a lot of things that can go wrong, jeopardizing a customer’s relationship with the brand. This article talks about how automation can sort out the biggest challenges to smooth delivery success, enhancing the customer experience and boosting revenue and brand competitiveness. In this article: The Havoc of Missed and Late Deliveries Technology to the Rescue It’s All About Growth If you’re a box subscription customer, you know what it’s like to get that box on your doorstep. They’re little curated collections of goodness, just for you. It can be like Christmas, minus the huge cost, argumentative family members, and the big mess to clean up afterward. That’s why we as subscription customers love our boxes. They’re fun. Unless they’re late, or worse, they’re not what we expected at all. If you’re on the other side of the subscription box, working tirelessly to source and process products, then deliver them on time, you’re caught in a logistical challenge. Spending countless hours on spreadsheets. Chasing after suppliers. Double-checking delivery schedules. And dreading customer disappointment. The Havoc of Missed and Late Deliveries If you want to keep customers, you’ve got to turn their disappointment into a YES every time you have a point of contact. Churn in the subscription box industry is high. One big cause of churn is delivery problems. No matter what the cause, you have to deal with the financial consequences. Technology to the Rescue Fortunately, you can turn things around, easily. You just need the right tool. And that’s automation. It’s like having an invisible assistant who doesn’t need to take a break or ever go home. Automation does all the stuff you hate to do including managing orders, tracking shipments, and updating customers. Specifically, it brings your business advantages like: Fulfillment thanks to a comprehensive inventory management system Great inventory management runs end-to-end, from suppliers to fulfillment. The best solutions offer real-time visibility into your stock levels, supplier lead times, and customer demand patterns. It can anticipate shortages and adjust if stock levels don’t meet demand. It can adjust product selections (even when customers make last-minute changes) and it ensures that every box is packed with the right goods and shipped on schedule. Customer knowledge driven by AI-driven analytics Analytics transform data into actionable insights. The right system looks at your customers’ behavior, purchase history, trends, and seasonality to accurately predict future preferences. With this foresight, you can customize how customers experience your website. And you can offer personalized product selections and pricing. Subscribers love a personalized experience - it matters when a business offers things that they love! Streamlined operations and cut costs Automation handles the worst, time-consuming, soul-sapping repetitive tasks easily: Sorting customer inquiries Managing subscriptions Creating sales opportunities including add-ons and upgrades Invoicing and payments Optimizing delivery routes Not only does that save you time and money, but you’ll be free to focus on high-value work like development and strategy. Less stress thanks to real-time tracking Customers love to know where their packages are. Real-time tracking means customers don’t have to worry about the whereabouts of their packages. And you’re spared the avalanche of worried messages and frustrated queries that come from uncertain customers. Clarity in recognizing revenue Automation makes revenue recognition an easy ask. All your revenues and expenses will be accurately allocated to the right periods, even if customers change their subscriptions. And you get real-time visibility into financial health whenever you need it. Less risk thanks to compliance Compliance isn’t just about revenue recognition. Automation brings you certainty about rules regarding consumer protection, data privacy, and selling across different regions and countries because it monitors everything relevant. The worry about fines, legal challenges, and reputational damage due to non-compliance becomes a thing of the past. You get the competitive advantage Automation brings your customers their subscription boxes on time. And it gives your business a leg up over your competitors who still do things manually. It’s All About Growth When you get the tools you need for delivery schedule management (and box subscription management in general) you give your business so much potential. Don’t put your business at risk by doing it manually. Be compliant. Recognize your revenue. Give your customers transparency. Streamline your operations. And reignite each customer’s love for your products every time that package arrives on their doorstep filled with what they want and on time. Give them the YES! Factor. Curious about how this could work for you? Book a free Discovery Call with our team today.
Bluefort is the Microsoft Cloud Partner and Authority with core competence in Subscription Management and Recurring Revenue automation for SMBs and Enterprise Business.